The Future of Advertising Production: Sergio Lopez on AI, Scale, and Creativity at Omnicom

Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs Podcast Transcript

Title: The Future of Advertising Production: Sergio Lopez on AI, Scale, and Creativity at Omnicom

Host: Orlando Wood
Guest: Sergio Lopez

Speaker 2 (00:00)

Omnicom is on track to become the largest advertising holding company

in the world And today we’re sitting down with Sergio Lopez, CEO of

Omnicom Production, one of the most powerful figures in advertising

production today. Sergio is leading one of the biggest shifts in

production power the industry has ever seen. The background to this is

that for years, as margins shrank, holding companies have been pulling

more of the production pipeline in-house. But now,

Media spend is increasingly diversified across media platforms. Big

data is shaping creative decisions on a daily basis, and brands are

forced to react faster than ever to shifting consumer sentiment. So

this is becoming more of a need, and production pipelines have to move

at greater speed and with more adaptability to service their brands

and their needs in this changing world. But that shift is incredibly

controversial in the production community. After all, Omnicom owns

some of the greatest agencies of all time.

This is Goodby Silverstein and Partners, TBWA Chiat Day, 180, BBDO,

Adam and Eve DDB. And those names may not mean a lot to the rest of

the world, but to the advertising community, these are the faces on

Mount Rushmore of advertising. They’re incredibly creative and they’ve

done the work that’s inspired creatives and producers over the last 50

years. And the fear is that centralizing production could strip

agencies of the craft and control that elevate a good idea into a

great

But I guess in talking with Sergio, it’s clear that this isn’t about

just capturing margin. It’s about meeting a reality that many in the

industry don’t really want to face. Decision making closer to the

brand’s needs is required if we want advertising creativity to survive

at all. And it’s easy to forget, brands are the clients. They’re the

ones paying the bills. So should their desire for speed and

flexibility above all else be respected? Is it the job of creatives to

fight for the old ways? Is it the job of creatives to

be creative enough to reinvent themselves inside whatever new modality

we’re heading into next. Those are the questions at the heart of this

conversation. And I really appreciate Sergio for sitting down with me

to have it. Because the future of production isn’t just about budgets

and workflows. It’s about whether the industry can adapt quickly

enough to keep creativity relevant in a world moving faster and more

commoditized than ever before. And Sergio Lopez is right at the center

of that change. So I’m really excited about this conversation. I hope

you stick around.

Well, Sergio Lopez, thank you so much for doing this. You are CEO of

Omnicom Production.

which makes you, and I hope you won’t mind me saying this, the most

important man in global advertising production, which I think is

pretty exciting.which makes you, and I hope you won’t mind me saying this, the most

important man in global advertising production, which I think is

pretty exciting.

Speaker 1 (02:42)

Well, mean, my remedy is on the Omnicom production agencies with

Steel. It’s one of the largest production entities in the world. And

it’s been something that we’ve pulled together in the last year. I

joined Omnicom in April last year and in just nine months, we had to

do a big transformation project where we

brought together all our 76 production units into one and created a

new production and define what we saw the future of production be. ⁓

Speaker 2 (03:09)

Well, I’d love to get into that because there’s been a lot of, you

know, a lot of talk, a lot of information, a lot of misinformation, I

think as well. There are just, I mean, so many advertising agencies

sit underneath the Omnicom banner. Over 50 % of the leading brands in

America, certainly, and in the world are represented by Omnicom

agencies. And within that, there are agencies like Media Arts Lab,

TBWA, Shy Day, Gooby Silverstein.

Abneve, DDB, BBDO, you know, there’s so much talent within the

network. And, and one of the things that you guys have been doing is

centralizing the production resource as, as a service to the agencies.

And I’d love to kind of talk about, you know, why that’s a different

and unique offering and what that looks like.

Speaker 1 (03:56)

Production has been built on the back of the agencies, which gives us

a really good creative DNA. you think about it, like Omnicom has been

the holding company that over the last decade consistently has been in

the top two, top three most awarded, ⁓ AITs in the world. I’d like

some of the other groups come in and out of that, that top two, top

three. And yet Omnicom has consistently been there on the back of the

work done on agencies like GoodV, TWA, BVDO, ⁓ Adam and Eve. The

creative DNA is actually very, runs very deep. And now when we talk to

clients,

they have much, to be here, much complex problems. They have problems

on things that we’ve been talking about for the last decade. A lot of

channels, social media, connected TV, like all these things. And on

top of that number of things, which leads to complexity, there’s been

a couple of things that have been added in the last couple of years.

One of them is the large clients or the larger clients that we deal

with. When they try to build a strategy that is customer centric, that

is consumer centric, they realize that consumers want to

consistent customer experience. when they look at the work on TV, it

needs to be consistent to what they do on e-commerce on their website.

needs to be consistent with social. needs to be consistent with the

in-shopper experience. about brands like Apple, think about Adidas.

What you see on TV needs to be the experience that have when you go to

the shop. needs to be consistent to what you buy on e-commerce. And

when they look at the way that we’ve been doing work over the last 40,

50 years,consistent customer experience. when they look at the work on TV, it

needs to be consistent to what they do on e-commerce on their website.

needs to be consistent with social. needs to be consistent with the

in-shopper experience. about brands like Apple, think about Adidas.

What you see on TV needs to be the experience that have when you go to

the shop. needs to be consistent to what you buy on e-commerce. And

when they look at the way that we’ve been doing work over the last 40,

50 years,

For a client to do a global campaign, they have to engage with over

200 production supplies or production people. And when I talk

production, I’m not just talking about TV, talking TV, video content,

print, digital. It’s very difficult to have a seamless experience when

you have 200 people tinkering with something. It’s almost like saying,

try to build something with 200 architects. I like try to, try to

paint a picture, a painting with 200 painters. It’s really, really

complicated. And that leads to a number of things.

running consistency, big problem at a time where we know that what

drives brands with better taste is to be differentiated from the rest

and have a very strong voice. So keeping that voice and that

consistency super, super important for performance. I’m sure that

everybody’s thinking crap, 200 suppliers, the inefficiencies might be

huge, right? Like 200 times explaining somebody what the campaign is

all about, what it has to be done, what is the ethos of the campaign?

What is the soul of this thing? Very, very complicated.

Very inefficient from a time point of view, very inefficient from a

cost point of view. So what brands are looking at now is how can we

have something? Because everything that I do with the end-usings at

some point will have to be made. Production is the only thing that

when you look at content that just creative agencies, but it also

touches media, it touches commerce. What would be an ecosystem for

production look like? Where all those things can live under one place.

This is the moment where production has a seat at the table by itself.

and that has to extract itself from being part of another unit because

it becomes the unifier for everybody else.

Speaker 2 (06:55)

Yeah, it becomes more like a studio rather than an individualized

production entity.

Speaker 1 (07:01)

Exactly. So it works a lot like an entertainment studio. It becomes

something that it does continue to serve the creative agencies in the

sense of building the creative opportunities, elevating the work. It

does collaborate with independent production companies, but there are

some conversations that production is having to have right now, which

are a lot more evolved than the kind of things that we’re talking

about. Data is a big part of production. Automation is a big part of

production. Global orchestration, things that when I joined the

business, I had not a clue that I was going to be doing today.sense of building the creative opportunities, elevating the work. It

does collaborate with independent production companies, but there are

some conversations that production is having to have right now, which

are a lot more evolved than the kind of things that we’re talking

about. Data is a big part of production. Automation is a big part of

production. Global orchestration, things that when I joined the

business, I had not a clue that I was going to be doing today.

and things that I had to learn as I went on this journey. But as I’ve

gone, I realized that it’s fundamental and basic for any brand.

Speaker 2 (07:38)

And I think that as well, a lot of it is also reactivity, I imagine,

because when, in a world where your brand need can change between the

time of signing off the creative and the actual ad awarding, a single

tweet from the wrong person about your brand or something like that

can fundamentally change the needs of the campaign. And in the

existing system,

If that change is made, hands go out all along the line going, well,

you’re making a change. So, you know, I need to get paid for this

change. know, that ripples all the way through from production

companies to post houses, to edit houses, to sound design studios. And

this is the, just the traditional production pipeline, let alone

digital and websites and things like that experiential. But I imagine

that, you know, what is also quite helpful is.

Having the entire production pipeline or as much of it as possible

within the OmniCom ecosystem, when the brand changes, maybe a brief,

you guys can take a broader view and go, well, we don’t want to ruin

the overall relationship for so many different vendors, you know,

having to put out their hands for more money and change of scope and

things like that. We get to take the broader view, take that hit on

the chin and, and make that a smoother process as well. So I imagine

it also.

removes some of the friction points that often happen between agencies

and clients during the process.

Speaker 1 (09:01)

Not of that, it’s, it’s, again, it’s maturing the way that we would

work every time that I go and talk to a client that hasn’t done this.

Anybody that looks at it is solve you some of the things that need to

be, need to be done. And when you, when you almost like zoom back from

what we, because when you talk about production, again, we talk about

production companies and editorial and post-production, that’s a very

small part of the process before that happens or leading to that for

big brands.

You have what is called the creation of the global toolkit. When you

do the, what is the global idea and create all the assets that

everybody’s going to adapt. When you talk about reactivity, most large

brands of some of the, I’m not going to say clients because obviously

we’ll put people on the spot. It takes between 12 to 18 months, which

means what you’re seeing today is an idea that it’s been by the time

you do strategy, creative testing, and then you start producing a lot

of work to get to that toolkit that then everybody has, it’s 18

months. So imagine if.do the, what is the global idea and create all the assets that

everybody’s going to adapt. When you talk about reactivity, most large

brands of some of the, I’m not going to say clients because obviously

we’ll put people on the spot. It takes between 12 to 18 months, which

means what you’re seeing today is an idea that it’s been by the time

you do strategy, creative testing, and then you start producing a lot

of work to get to that toolkit that then everybody has, it’s 18

months. So imagine if.

How disconnected with the consumer that is, if you’re talking about

things that were a problem 18 months ago, 18 months ago, we had a

different president in the United States, different policies. And

you’re seeing in other words, I mean, you’re seeing on entertainment,

that’s part of what you see like Snow White, right? Like how Snow

White was a movie that was done for a time where there were some

concerns and now we’ve had a lot of problems apart from some of the

things, but how he just didn’t, there were some culturally, some

things have evolved or,

or had transitioned to a different conversation and did not impact

last. For a brand is exactly the same. mean, 18 months ago we were

coming out of pandemic and now it feels almost cute. So I think that

we were talking about. So be able to work with a client to shorten

that period to say, you don’t need 18 months. can do things, even if

you get from 18 months to six months, then when you’re doing work, you

don’t have to, some of those clients and they’re replicating that

those can place in different parts of the world. I cannot tell you how

many clients.

They shoot in the same campaign in different countries and what you’re

waiting relevance, sometimes you waste on efficiencies, which means

that you cannot hire the talents that will make that campaign magic.

So if you’re shooting the same commercial four times in different

parts of the world, you’re dividing your production budget by four. So

instead of hiring the best director, the best DP, the best, you’re

bringing somebody who can do it for a quarter, a quarter of the money,

because the marketing budget is the marketing budget. And like

everybody knows that a client has a

That’s a marketing allocation based on sales. So there is no more

money. Right. So when people are saying clients want more for less, or

they’re squeezing us, they’re squeezing us because they need to do

exactly that more for less. And if we don’t help them find those

efficiencies, or if we don’t help them waste less money on things that

don’t add creative value, they won’t be able to actually spend the

money on things that add creative value.

Speaker 2 (11:45)

Now, obviously creatives and producers will kind of say that what it

gains in efficiency, it loses in creative freedom at the agency level.

That the producers and the creatives are in charge of that triple bid

process, at least in the production standpoint. But choosing any

vendor really becomes a creative choice. that by limiting that level

of choice, although it does speed up the efficiency, that it limits

choice. What do you kind of think about that?Speaker 1 (12:15)

triple bidding process should continue to exist. And we do need to

continue to bring the best talent for the best project. There are

conversations that are being had at a different level, which is if you

as a brand are trying to build ⁓ a consistent voice, because that’s

what’s going to bring you recognition and get out of the sea of

sameness. Because we keep talking about triple bidding and bringing

the right talent. Over the last five years, we’ve seen that there is

a…

massive homogenization of the look and feel of everything that we

produce. We’ve been seeing since COVID, right? We used to even make

fun of during COVID of how every commercial look exactly same. see an

automotive, how it feels almost interchangeable. So there is a less

than an efficiency play. It’s a brand decision play on which if we’re

trying to create a specific tone of voice, what is the balance between

looking at new talent time over time versus for some clients having a

consistent pool of people? Meaning Wes Anderson uses a

a group of collaborators because he has a very specific look and time

over time they grow together and they build it together. When I look

at some of the most iconic chief creative officers that I work with

throughout my career, they tend to have a very small pool of directors

and collaborators that they tend to work with. mean, from, it was not

surprised, there was not surprised early in my career that chief

creative officers like Cheryl Berman had a very close relationship

with directors back in the day like Joe Pitca, right? And they…

They understood each other. They understood the voice that each other

had and they were experimenting together. And that relationship leads

to work that helps build iconic brands back in that day. It’s not the

efficiency play. The efficiency play works when you’re trying to not

duplicate shoots, not waste things, where you’re not all the things

that you can look at a bigger picture.

when you can, when you realize that you have brands that are doing

similar commercial different times of the year and you can bring

together. it’s, it’s a lot more operational. That’s where the

efficiency play comes from. a creative point of view, and that’s good.

And that adds value from a creative point of view is a decision about

brand driven decision on if it’s better to work closer with one

director and or a team of people or a smaller pool of people that

understand our brand. So we don’t have to brief them time over time

over time, or is it better to, to open every time to a number of

people? I can tell you that in Omegle is how the agencies that we

have.

You have some brands like DirectDB where we do the pigeons, where we

always bring the same team, but it’s not an efficiency play. You don’t

have to explain. It’s a very strong brand. And if it’s a very specific

creative, you don’t have to explain to somebody over and over what the

brand is all about.You have some brands like DirectDB where we do the pigeons, where we

always bring the same team, but it’s not an efficiency play. You don’t

have to explain. It’s a very strong brand. And if it’s a very specific

creative, you don’t have to explain to somebody over and over what the

brand is all about.

Speaker 2 (14:41)

Yeah, it’s interesting because, know, obviously in the nineties and

two thousands, you know, if, if creatives had their way and they did

back then, it was always make whatever film you want and then slap a

logo on the end. And actually, you know, the goal was really to get

the logo to be as small and as short as possible. They were always

trying to make the best film and that didn’t always make for the best

ad. remember, you know, when 180 was doing one of your, your agencies

was doing, you know, PlayStation.

There was a sort of moment where PlayStation said, and I think they

still do, they slapped the PlayStation logo right up front so that you

know what ad you’re about to watch. And then they put it at the end as

well. And there was a lot of complaints, but those ads didn’t stop

winning awards. In fact, they started winning even more. I do think

that sometimes the, yeah, I think that it’s not always a bad thing at

the end of the day.

The goal of these brands is to sell more product and have a piece of

media that achieves that end. And I don’t think it’s a dirty thing to

ensure that all the way down the pipeline, that’s respected.

Speaker 1 (15:49)

Yeah. mean, there is a, we talk about very big things as if they’re

one, one thing each. And I think that a lot of the, it’s a very

nuanced conversation is one, there is an evolution of platforms where

people are watching content. There’s a difference between a commercial

in the Superbowl where you have a captive audience that is actually

looking forward to watch commercials. And that would lead to beautiful

cinematic storytelling or what it’s been storytelling, like comedy,

whatever it is, but it’s

It’s, it’s clearly an entertainment and entertainment captive space.

But when you go in at a time where more and more of that content is

playing in skippable platforms or things where people can skip or not

engage with, you have to get very sharp on getting people on the

screen. I mean, let’s say somebody who has seen a teenager at home

over the last few years, the things that they engage with are very

different. Like the stuff that made me join this business and the

stuff that I love.

usually started with, ⁓ it’s, we’re going to put something that

doesn’t look like a commercial. open in a beautiful white shot. can

tell you that everything that starts with, it starts with a beautiful

white shot. That generation of people is was straight into a skip

button. So it needs a slightly different type of storytelling.

Speaker 2 (16:57)Speaker 2 (16:57)

So that’s why. Now it has to start with conflict and a slap in the

face and somebody getting drenched with something.

Speaker 1 (17:04)

Yeah.

Or maybe with a brand, because when they see the brand, a brand like

PlayStation or a brand like, which would do work for them, at least

they know that the content is going to be entertaining. It’s going to

be legit. And it’s going to be interesting. need to be that, that,

that, ⁓ formula actually works for them because they’re more prone

towards something that comes from PlayStation or Apple or Adidas. It’s

like, okay, this is, this is going to be cool content versus you’re

just going to.

God knows what this is going to be. don’t, I’m not interested. I

actually came here to watch something and you’re, you’re, you’re

stopping me from doing it. So again, like that’s, that’s from a

platform platform, one of you making sure that people don’t skip it.

And also we talk about television commercials and we put in the same

boat in a surfers or, or 1984, like some of the best work with a lot

of the work that is volume work. And I think that there is a nuance

between one and the other and a different space. And there is the

work.

And every industry has that fashion has that. It’s almost like talking

between Couture and Preta Borte music has that every industry has

that. And we can not treat everything like one or the other. We do

need to protect it. We do need to protect the creativity on the, on

those iconic creative cultural cinematic pieces, we do need to get

very smart on producing everything else, which is actually the

majority of what the industry, what the industry is. And there you

have retail brands like in the States, like

Walmart and Target and Aldi and CDS, you have automotive brands that

they all need to turn a lot of work on a regular basis. That’s where

you have pharma commercials. And that’s a big part of the industry.

And it’s not that one is better than the other, they operate at

different levels and we do need solutions for different things and

they have value on different things.

Speaker 2 (18:48)

Yeah, there’s been a lot made and I’ve spoken about it on here as

well, about the, you know, the producers sort of moving into the, the

holding company as a service. And I’ve, I’ve actually found the more

I’ve looked into it, that to be a bit of a red herring, you know,

cause it’s the, the notion that, know, Omnicom with all these offices

sits elsewhere at the end of the day, Omnicom owns all these agencies.

So where else are the producers going to sit? But in TBWHI day and,

and could be, and you know, there’s, there’s that office space sitting

there.well, about the, you know, the producers sort of moving into the, the

holding company as a service. And I’ve, I’ve actually found the more

I’ve looked into it, that to be a bit of a red herring, you know,

cause it’s the, the notion that, know, Omnicom with all these offices

sits elsewhere at the end of the day, Omnicom owns all these agencies.

So where else are the producers going to sit? But in TBWHI day and,

and could be, and you know, there’s, there’s that office space sitting

there.

So naturally, know, producers who are localized to that region are

going to be sitting in those offices. Is that the understanding that,

you know, that it’s really just a reality on paper, not really a

physical reality?

Speaker 1 (19:32)

I mean, the journey that we’re doing with production is very similar

to the journey that media did 20 years ago. And now media is for every

halting company is the biggest unit. So when we’re looking at all

production people becoming part of the same team, mean, like the

production teams are coming together that…

Speaker 2 (19:51)

They’re still sitting in the agencies. They’re still close to the

creative. Isn’t that right? Or are they physically moving?

Speaker 1 (19:58)

Not only the buildings that we have are the buildings that we have.

Speaker 2 (20:00)

Yeah, that’s sort of what I meant. Yeah. Yeah, there’s nowhere else

for them to go.

Speaker 1 (20:04)

You

mean like we don’t have, we don’t have another building, other than

the buildings that we have. It’s it’s a funny, it’s a funny

conversation, right? Because especially in the last few years when we

did it, we did the first time that we did it was a craft in London

when we did a McCann and craft in London. And it was a, and they, and

they look at it as people always look at the future, thinking about

just doing the same things of the past. And they, they rarely stop to

think about the possibilities of when you do this, what are, what you

are actually unlocking. And for people, for people who have a passion

for creativity and the making.

bringing the community of makers together makes a lot of sense because

it just makes everything more fluid. Especially when you’re trying to

innovate with things that are not traditional or that are not as

straightforward. Again, when I was in kind of think about like

survival billboard or campaigns like that, that don’t fit in any

specific media and actually made work very well for Microsoft and for

the agency. that was, people had a very tough time wrapping their

heads around it and they were sitting in the…

proximity to the creative was very important. Now in 2025, we’re

talking about proximity to the creative, where if you read any

advertising magazine, people are a tough time having people coming

back to the office. So it’s a tricky conversation to reconcile. Of

course, they say it’s close to the creative, especially when we have,

again, the buildings that we have. I sit in the Avenue of the Americas

building where there are 10 other agencies in all the floors that we

have But even with thatproximity to the creative was very important. Now in 2025, we’re

talking about proximity to the creative, where if you read any

advertising magazine, people are a tough time having people coming

back to the office. So it’s a tricky conversation to reconcile. Of

course, they say it’s close to the creative, especially when we have,

again, the buildings that we have. I sit in the Avenue of the Americas

building where there are 10 other agencies in all the floors that we

have. But even with that,

we still don’t have the number of people coming back to the office

that we used to have a years ago. So when people say, where do the

producers sit? They sit on shoots. Some of them sit at home most of

the time to get to the, and same thing with the creatives, is becoming

a much more fluid. It’s not like everybody’s coming to the office all

the time. It’s become a much more fluid relationship. So physical

proximity has become a concept that is quite strange at the moment.

Speaker 2 (21:52)

Is there a potential example where somebody who’s in New York, who’s

only being allocated at 50 % of their time ends up working, you know,

remotely for a creative team at Goodby? ⁓ And do you find that that

works well? it, is, or is there a difference that you notice between a

producer functionally working with a creative team there in the same

building as versus a, you know, being a time zone away?

Speaker 1 (22:05)

Yeah, we do that all the time.

to be doing very well in awards this year with that semi-connect work.

And it’s a concept. I can put a couple of provocations over there,

such as, it’s like saying an agency in San Francisco never hire a

freelance producer in LA or New York. I know that all those agencies

have hired freelancers that are in other cities for decades. When I

was living in Chicago and working at Kramer Castle, I can tell you of

three or four people that we use regularly for campaigns.

that were based in San Francisco and New York. These things didn’t

seem to be the problem 10, 20 years ago. Doesn’t seem to be the

problem now. What that allows us to do is actually be able to do like,

does two things that I think are very important for the work, be able

to fit the right producer to the right project. People that have a

passion for certain things, be able to match it to the right project.

And from a career point of view, career developing from a point of

view from our teams is fantastic because

That means that both from a client expertise where you want to work,

provides a lot more opportunities at a time. Remember where production

departments are a fraction of what they used to be 10, 20 years ago.

So when, when you’re in a production department of 20 people, you have

the opportunities that you have, and you have the opportunities within

the agency that you, that you have. When all of a sudden you open that

to 3000 briefs, which is roughly what we do every year. It’s

fantastic. mean, which, which, which producer in Chicago.That means that both from a client expertise where you want to work,

provides a lot more opportunities at a time. Remember where production

departments are a fraction of what they used to be 10, 20 years ago.

So when, when you’re in a production department of 20 people, you have

the opportunities that you have, and you have the opportunities within

the agency that you, that you have. When all of a sudden you open that

to 3000 briefs, which is roughly what we do every year. It’s

fantastic. mean, which, which, which producer in Chicago.

doesn’t like the idea of working for good be shy a day. It’s a, you’re

talking about one 80, which we have in LA be able to pull people from

a career progression. It’s a fantastic thing to be able to do.

Speaker 2 (24:00)

And are you talent matching as well? mean, do you kind of go, this

person has great experience in sports and so we’re able to put them

on, you know, you looking at it in that granular level from a talent

development standpoint?

Speaker 1 (24:11)

So

we often actually the meeting that I had right before this podcast was

with what we call the RTCH, which is talent coordination, which sits

in Chicago. And it’s a team of people that look at every single brief.

What is the right match for the, what is the right match for the

brief? They manage our freelancers. we’d buy them. We bring the right

freelancers as well. And we, when people join the team, we do a layer

of a scrap of what kind of work have they done in the past? What are

the things, and what are the things also, one of the programs that we

launched in January this year was our career mentorship program.

And it’s exactly that is what do people want to do? Where do people

want to go? And how do we help them get there through the projects

that they do? they want to get expertise on something? Do they want to

have international experience? developing the talent of the future was

a big thing for us. that is why we created a team that is solely

focused on doing that on a national level.

Speaker 2 (25:05)

You know, one of the other things that you guys are doing, which I

think is amazing, is you’re obviously very forward thinking about your

tech. You’re working with the Adobe content supply chain. You have

Artbot, you have Omni, you’re using a lot of technology across from

strategy to creative to production to post to delivery systems to A-B

testing and…

And all that kind of stuff, all of the, you know, the, the stuff that

people who work in day-to-day agencies often don’t see that is such a

huge value proposition of a massive holding company. You know,

obviously I’m, I’m interested in, we were talking with Andre Vargas,

who’s the chief data officer at CAA. And he was, you know, really

talking about the difference between, know, obviously everybody’s

they’re talking about AI, but they’re really focused on generative AI.

He’s like, we’ve been using machine learning on our data forever.And getting a lot of really great stuff out of it. We’re not as

focused on generative AI. I’m interested to know, you know, looking at

your systems, you know, what are you doing from a machine learning

standpoint? And then, yeah, what are you doing from a machine learning

and data standpoint?

Speaker 1 (26:09)

And we’re looking at data in three ways right now. One is making sure

that the briefs that we have help us understand the audiences that

we’re going to. And that’s when things, and before I get into this

conversation, so people don’t get mistaken, it’s not a polarized

conversation about one or the other, right? Like it’s not an

exclusive, it’s not creative or data, it’s creative and data. And

doing one doesn’t mean that the other one is exclusive. So we’ve been

talking about creative and creative value. Now, if we’re talking about

data, we do need to understand audiences.

media and the audience is we’re targeting the content. So we do need

to understand what do we need to do to make sure that that content

becomes less skippable or is more relevant or is more personalized.

And that starts with even before we go and shoot stuff, we need to

understand who’s going to, because that leads to what we call

modularized content. And that’s where some of the, that’s where we’re

now in kind of like a weird conversation, because once you talk about

modularized content and say, well, this commercial, we need to shoot

certain things in a different ways and some modules to be able to make

sure that we can use it.

globally and globally for multiple audiences. All of a sudden is this

thing of we want to triple beat it, but production companies don’t

want to engage it because there’s one a linear one version kind of

thing. Right. And that’s, that’s where we all need to level out is

this. I appreciate, I appreciate that there’s a lot of 1990s

nostalgia. I was in the nineties. I really enjoyed it. have a lot of

photos and T-shirts, but that’s not the world that we live right now.

And that’s where we all need to evolve together. Some brands, not all

the brands, I’m not talking about Super Bowl commercials. They do need

that right now.

the Git modular content to drive to personalizations. The first one is

data to understand audiences and what content do we need to capture

for those audiences and markets. Audience to market nuances, to

cultural vetting, that is the first stop that we do that. During the

production process, we use a lot of efficiency in spend data. It’s

like, what are we doing? How are we working? What are the things that

can help us work?

that’s more more efficient just to show the client the value that we

read to them. And then all the data on optimization, goes back to the

beginning. Because then if we can tell the client, are the people that

we were talking to, this is how much it took to make it happen. We

optimize it. And then we have the performance data, which is on the

media teams. We can start having a conversation about return

investment to the client. And it’s a different conversation. Then the

conversation is not about, I need to save you 5 % on production or 10

% on production is…that’s more more efficient just to show the client the value that we

read to them. And then all the data on optimization, goes back to the

beginning. Because then if we can tell the client, are the people that

we were talking to, this is how much it took to make it happen. We

optimize it. And then we have the performance data, which is on the

media teams. We can start having a conversation about return

investment to the client. And it’s a different conversation. Then the

conversation is not about, I need to save you 5 % on production or 10

% on production is…

You might have spent more than you might not have had savings on

production, but the value that he’s adding because of the way that he

performed is that, or, this is the value before your brand on

investing on creatives. See, when we do a very creative piece, this is

the outcome. When we don’t, this is the outcome and be able to have

conversations that are more level headed because that’s what clients

want right now. Budgets are, budgets are very tight and, and

predictability and understanding if they’re spending the money on the

smart way, it’s very, very important to them. And when you think about

it,

is no different to how we behave as people at home. And when we’re

going to buy something in Amazon, we want something that has the high

rating. We want something that we know that we’re paying the right

price. When we’re going to buy an airplane ticket, we go to Expedia

and compare different prices for hotels. That behavior is how clients

translate that behavior into advertising. That’s how clients are

looking now at the business because that’s how they operate in the

rest of their lives.

Speaker 2 (29:23)

Yeah. One of the, one of the, you know, one of the partners that you

guys are working with our Adobe, think Adobe has been, been further

out front, I think the most for tracking provenance and making sure

that the generative things that they’re offering to clients like

yourself are as clean as they can possibly be. Obviously, you know,

using generative AI is a, you know, a hot bum point. Everybody knows

that it’s coming, but obviously the copyright concerns are.

are huge. You you guys can’t be utilizing models that are potentially

infringing on copyright because the thing that will kill your

relationship with your client fastest, I mean, Disney and NBC

Universal just sued mid-journey for copyright infringement just

yesterday or the day before. If you put a piece of media out there

that infringes on copyright or even has it in its training data and

you get your client sued by Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, whoever it

is,

by a multinational, that’s potentially disastrous to their business.

So how are you guys thinking about copyright concerns and what are you

able to do and where do you see it going?

Speaker 1 (30:29)So what we’ve done is we developed a, created a number of platforms

that we call Omnia AI on generative AI. We’ve been developing that, a

team led by, by Paolo and Jonathan. We developed that for, for a

couple of years. It’s a great solid platform with the number of

partners where everything around generative AI. So text, text image

video, apart from other

Speaker 2 (30:48)

What does the platform do?

Speaker 1 (30:55)

the things on briefing and things like that. It’s in the same way that

we have Omni for data, we have OmniAI for creation of images. And by

the way, when you were talking about like data stuff, we have Omni for

data, OmniPro for production management and OmniAI for AI. And those

three things work together. So the way that we curated OmniAI, there

are platforms that we do have an understanding of how the models have

been trained and we have indemnization policies. And that’s a decision

that we constantly have made.

exactly for who you’re talking about. We work with some of the world’s

biggest brands. We’re an American company, which is a quietly teacher

society. We don’t want to be in a situation. We’re the decision of

being, even though sometimes it might limit our ability to be at the

front of the spear, at the edge of innovation, but it will make us

good, safe, and reliable, which is what we want to be. So we have

partnerships with.

Obviously, it’s Tobi, it’s got OpenAI, it’s with Runway. I mean, I can

go on and on, it’s a number of platforms where indemnization is at the

center. And with platforms that we know how they’re trading those

materials. And when we do work with clients, they do it through us.

That’s why we don’t use other platforms that people are using where

indemnization is not part of the agreement. And we actually block it.

don’t allow our teams to use it. It doesn’t work on any computer in

the company to prevent those kinds of situations.

Speaker 2 (32:17)

And so does that mean, I mean, you know, it sounds like you’ve already

kind of sorted out that, that rights management part of it. Does that

mean that you’re already, where are you currently able to use

generative AI? it already coming out in product or are you still using

it only in creative development? And you know, where, where are you?

Speaker 1 (32:35)

created development, we’re using it a lot. It’s almost like a bookend.

It’s definitely transforming the backend of the business. you look at

localization, translation, global versioning, because synthetic voice

translation, have mother tongue, which is our translation unit that

uses actually mother tongue. It’s our translation unit works with

Google, helping them develop the language models, multilingual

language models. We know how it is to train that model very, very

well. So everything on thatcreated development, we’re using it a lot. It’s almost like a bookend.

It’s definitely transforming the backend of the business. you look at

localization, translation, global versioning, because synthetic voice

translation, have mother tongue, which is our translation unit that

uses actually mother tongue. It’s our translation unit works with

Google, helping them develop the language models, multilingual

language models. We know how it is to train that model very, very

well. So everything on that

scale versioning global adaptation that is very, very quickly. And a

lot of that is live for clients. For some of the work that is going

live, creative development for sure, like the world of stimuli,

creative development, the way we do the storyboards, animatics, that’s

becoming very fast in the front end. And we have some, some really

good work. mean, just this year alone, just in the last three months

alone in the UK, we’ve done the Temptations campaign because it was a

campaign for cat food and cats disguised as dogs.

because they realized that dogs get treats and cats don’t and that

cannot be done. But that’s, what I like about that campaign. It’s

something that is done in AI because it couldn’t, couldn’t be done in

live action or, it would have been very difficult to do in CGI

dressing cats as dogs. And it’s beautiful and it’s great. We just

launched it. I love that campaign. The PSAI campaign, is, I love the

song about like protecting from Columbia, from Columbia journal, great

song.

Speaker 2 (33:53)

Yeah, it’s done very well.

Speaker 1 (34:01)

and sell amazing shots like getting all the memes, using a song to

make sure that people can differentiate between AI content and

editorial AI content and not to spread fake news. And also from

Goodby, we were talking about Goodby, be able to bring, because they

have one of their accounts, it’s the Dali Museum, and to bring to life

one of the films that Dali had written that the studios in Hollywood

didn’t want to produce because of the complexity and the, you know,

Dali’s mind, so you might know what it would have been. And we made

the trailer partnering with

with goals. is work that is started to come. There’s some limitations

still on AI, especially when we talk about campaigns that are dialogue

campaigns, it’s difficult to make a lot of comedy and we do do a lot

of comedy work. It has limitations when you have products and keeping

the reliability of the product and even character consistency, like

Randway a couple of days ago just launched their new module which

provides, so there’s things that are being worked through that make it

difficult for some of the work that we do to use AI, but it’s very

quickly getting in.

Speaker 2 (34:59)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s interesting because I think that on a colloquial

level, people have kind of looked at that Coca-Cola ad that was done

in AI and they’re like, well, you know, they did it once. But I think

that what people aren’t realizing is that it is coming out. Sometimes

it’s being used as a tool. Sometimes it’s being used, you know, in a

much broader way. But it’s ⁓ it’s good to know that a lot of the

copyright challenges are being answered. Is Omni AI in use in every

single one of your agencies or is it reallyMm-hmm. Yeah, that’s interesting because I think that on a colloquial

level, people have kind of looked at that Coca-Cola ad that was done

in AI and they’re like, well, you know, they did it once. But I think

that what people aren’t realizing is that it is coming out. Sometimes

it’s being used as a tool. Sometimes it’s being used, you know, in a

much broader way. But it’s ⁓ it’s good to know that a lot of the

copyright challenges are being answered. Is Omni AI in use in every

single one of your agencies or is it really

kind of contained to Omnicom production at the moment.

Speaker 1 (35:32)

No, it’s in use by agencies. We limit the number of people that are

using it to make sure that they’re using the right place. But it has,

I want to believe that has about 4 5,000 users at the moment.

Speaker 2 (35:43)

God, that’s incredible. guess that means that, you know, the AI

advertising age is here and it’s just getting started, but it’s going

to get, you know, I mean, how far do you think you’re away from

creating an end to end fully AI ad?

Speaker 1 (35:58)

And it could be done. think that very, very quickly. mean, we could do

it. We could do it today, but it’s not just about the technology. It’s

about the people that know how to use the technology. And like the, ⁓

the Wright brothers, when they first invented the plane, it only, it

only flew a football field, not because the plane couldn’t fly longer,

but because nobody had flown a plane before. Somebody was training,

had to be a pilot. like somebody was trying to be a pilot on the first

flight. You know what I mean? Is this a leave it or the first.

I remember when I was in college, the first ⁓ TV cameras were operated

by engineers, not by artists because the cameras were so technical.

think that when we go, yes, the technology needs to get better, but

there is people that are starting to use AI and know how to interact

with AI and prompt AI. The work that I’m starting to see from AI

creators is great and fascinating and different people are starting to

have their own styles. mean, where’s him?

the stuff that we see every time there’s a new technology coming up

the the whole cycle. I think what I think that we’re going to see or

what I believe is I’m not sure that they’re going to do traditional

television commercials. think they’re going to do something else. If

there are more possibilities, why would you just do something from the

past? Why wouldn’t you do something, something of the future,

something that aligns more with that fast-paced content that people

are looking for things that are more personalized, things that are

more relevant to.

to the individual, struggled to see a future where 10 years from now,

we will watch 30 second commercials.

Speaker 2 (37:38)Speaker 2 (37:38)

You know, you’re right. There’s a degree to which we’re looking at AI

and trying to make TV commercials when in fact, AI is going to be

doing something entirely different. mean, that’s what’s so intriguing

about Sam Altman and Johnny Ive, you know, potentially working

together on a screenless product. It’s, ⁓ it’s, you know, it’s, it’s

who’s going to take us to that next realm where everything does look a

little bit different and a little bit more AI native.

Speaker 1 (38:07)

I know. I really don’t know what it looks like, but I can see and see

that the reason why we do 32nd commercials is and one commercial is

that’s what we can afford. I would post questions like, what would we

do if cost wasn’t an issue? Because I was just watching today a behind

the scenes and the entire behind the scenes was that in AI, which I

thought it was hysterical and included like a whole city flooding and

a tornado like things that if I wanted to do on CGI would have cost

hundreds of thousands and weeks and weeks of work.

So of course it’s not an issue and you can do anything and you know

who you’re talking to and you know that they want to, they’re, you

know, they, they, they will connect with you for like 10 seconds max,

but what you do, maybe, maybe the concept of episodic advertising is

something that is, instead of just doing one 30 second commercial,

maybe it’s a sequence of shorter commercials. Maybe it’s a different

conversation. Maybe something that is, can, I can.

see a massive number of possibilities. I cannot see AI replicating

what we’re doing today because it’s something that has a lot of

challenges and has that expiration date.

Speaker 2 (39:15)

But yeah, ⁓ I mean, do you, you know, I was listening to somebody

speak where they were talking about the difference between a creative

and a creator. And a creative is somebody who requires an

infrastructure or a brand or a, you know, a studio or a production

infrastructure. Whereas a creator is somebody who is both creative and

producer in and of themselves. Do you, you know, how do you see that

balance happening in the future?

Speaker 1 (39:40)

mean, that’s how we’re talking now about the role of creative agencies

and the role of public on production is and where we see the industry

coin. We see the advertising agencies going to a much more higher and

strategic role where they working with brands on second app. What is

their brand strategy? What is the master brand? What we call, what is

the creative platform? I like what is that underpinning thing where

everything comes out of comes out of, and our role is platform

creative.

meaning once you have that master brand idea, once you have like that

big thing, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to fit into

that where you don’t need people that challenge the strategy. You just

need people to continue building on top of that. So that’s the

difference between creative platform and platform creative. That’s the

difference between a creative and a creator.meaning once you have that master brand idea, once you have like that

big thing, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to fit into

that where you don’t need people that challenge the strategy. You just

need people to continue building on top of that. So that’s the

difference between creative platform and platform creative. That’s the

difference between a creative and a creator.

Speaker 2 (40:25)

And do you think that you’re going to be training your producers up to

be more creative or the creative is going to be trained up to be more

like producers or does everybody sort of become a, you know, one

person creative production entity, you know, with all the power of

creation.

Speaker 1 (40:41)

No, I don’t think that that’s, it’ll be very difficult to find people

that are good at everything or they’re even interested in which one

when digital, when digital happen. But I also know that the roles are

going to change, meaning people that do in the production area where

we have, we actually have planners and creatives and producers and

makers. The role of a producer is going to be somebody that is

actually an orchestrator and a facilitator, especially when you have a

lot of things happening at the same time.

But I expect in my, in my team, people like designers, for example, my

design team to be designers that make stuff, not designers that then

have to go to the studios and work with a, don’t know, motion designer

to do something. would imagine that are people that are making, that

are making things in the same way that usually people from strategy

sometimes need to be able to write or to be able to express, to

express themselves in a, in a way. I think that apart from, I think

that you can synthesize it into things. One, people need to be more

about.

making more hands-on, the world where PowerPoints were the output in

my world, in the world of OOP, that’s not sustainable. That’s not

where it’s going to be. People need to always be able to make stuff

and producers need to be able to orchestrate all those people that are

making things. But creativity is something that truly has to flow

throughout the whole organization, which we’ve been talking about for

years. When we’ve been saying everybody has to be a creative,

everybody has to truly be a creative. We cannot have

the wealth of somebody, in the sense creative and the other people are

key pushers, it’s not sustainable. Again, like if somebody sees as a

key push, that would be replaced by AI very, very quickly.

Speaker 2 (42:13)

Yeah, that’s a very good point. Well, Sergio, I have one more question

that I’ve been asking everybody, which is the late great Dan Wyden had

a great quote that I always love, which is you’re useless to me until

you failed big at least twice. ⁓ And it’s a very, always to me, a very

comforting thing is it meant to me that your boss couldn’t yell at you

that bad. If this was one of your big two.Yeah, that’s a very good point. Well, Sergio, I have one more question

that I’ve been asking everybody, which is the late great Dan Wyden had

a great quote that I always love, which is you’re useless to me until

you failed big at least twice. ⁓ And it’s a very, always to me, a very

comforting thing is it meant to me that your boss couldn’t yell at you

that bad. If this was one of your big two.

Speaker 1 (42:36)

It’s very humbling. It’s very humbling. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:40)

⁓ so I wanted to ask you, can you remember a time you failed and what

you learned from it?

Speaker 1 (42:46)

can remember that more than one time. I can remember many, many, many

times and I think about them all the time.

Speaker 2 (42:53)

Well, we have time. I don’t want to take too much of your time, but as

many of them as you’d be willing to tell us, we’d be happy to hear it.

Speaker 1 (43:00)

It’s always good when people just see the output, but it’s like any

business. I always try to go to places where you poke holes at things

and try to go to places and think about new ways of doing things. And

that meant that sometimes I had to go places where people hadn’t been

before, done things that people hadn’t been before. So there’s a huge

amount of mistakes along.

along the way, it’s like, can I assure you that I, most of the times I

get it wrong. It’s also true that I’ve learned being really lucky to

have the bosses and mentors that I had that taught me how to sail fast

and how to smell very quickly when something was going in the wrong

direction. But I made many mistakes on where I thought what was the,

what was the way of doing things. You know, I can, have lots of

lessons around my, my career. I learned the difference between what

you can put in a PowerPoint and then what you can actually

bring to life, And working with talent, I made mistakes on the time

invested in certain things or time on jobs that I’ve taken. Yeah, I

had a whole book full of lessons, sort of lessons learned. think that

the things that I learned from that is knowing that playing it safe

never has led to anything good. Like failing, failing is part of

the…

Failing is part of the process. And there is a difference between

failing and negligence. Meaning there’s a difference between I try to

explore and I realized that I went in the wrong way. So we just went

somewhere else and not doing the basics, right? Like I don’t have a

lot of, a lot of patience for negligence. So that is, that is one is

just never give up trying, never be complacent with myself and with,

and allow the teams to, to do it. think that that’s the second one is

allow everybody to grow through their own journey and allow them

sometimes toFailing is part of the process. And there is a difference between

failing and negligence. Meaning there’s a difference between I try to

explore and I realized that I went in the wrong way. So we just went

somewhere else and not doing the basics, right? Like I don’t have a

lot of, a lot of patience for negligence. So that is, that is one is

just never give up trying, never be complacent with myself and with,

and allow the teams to, to do it. think that that’s the second one is

allow everybody to grow through their own journey and allow them

sometimes to

to do some of the things that I did, even though I know that it’s not

going to take, go to the right place or a field that is not going to

go to the right place just because they would learn and they will

become stronger and, actually brings people, bring people closer. The

third thing is the value of a team is how this is a, team, a team

business and a people business and how it’s all about having a,

collaborators and people that work closely and people that are part of

the journey. Yeah, that would be

That would be like the three lessons that I’ve learned on all the

hundreds of times that I got it wrong.

Speaker 2 (45:32)

I think it’s interesting that you brought up failing quickly because I

do think that that’s a huge part of the creative process no matter

what part you’re in is, okay, you can expect failure, but please do it

quickly, get over it fast and move on to whatever the next thing is.

Speaker 1 (45:47)

a lot of the times that I felt is it was having unrealistic

expectations of what people could do and what they could deliver. We

were talking about, were saying, are we going to have talent that can

do everything? There was a time when we were looking for the

integrated producer, which was a producer that could do even digital

print all at once and understand directors and trafficking sheets and

QA of websites. that was the thing for a time. And I tried to build

it, but

Speaker 2 (46:17)

Yeah, they never really materialized those unicorns, did they?

Speaker 1 (46:20)

And they never really materialized that I learned. mean, I did learn a

valuable lesson over that, was, which I owe to that lesson, possibly

out of my career. And even though I grew up in a culture of rule,

there are no rules and it’s all about breaking the rules. There is

something to be learned about companies that run their business as

their business. And when you’re trying to change what people do, you

do need to invest time educating people and you do need to mentor

people and you do need to do things that feel a little bit grown up.

And that we frowned upon in the advertising business. This miss as

corporate, but it actually made a difference when, and when we, that’s

why, for example, I wouldn’t, if I hadn’t felt then now that we’re

building only comp production with a vision and our vision was well,

this is the first, this is the first production unit for a new wealth

of creativity and AI. We cannot expect to a group of 3,500 people that

overnight.And that we frowned upon in the advertising business. This miss as

corporate, but it actually made a difference when, and when we, that’s

why, for example, I wouldn’t, if I hadn’t felt then now that we’re

building only comp production with a vision and our vision was well,

this is the first, this is the first production unit for a new wealth

of creativity and AI. We cannot expect to a group of 3,500 people that

overnight.

they’re all going to be query masters and understand AI and that they

all even want to want to do it. So that’s why I knew that from very

quickly, big part of our success was going to be our training program

and education program and our mentorship program. And it was the first

thing that we announced in January, as soon as we finished the whole

process of bringing all of the compilations together. was literally

the first thing in the new year that we launched before we talked

about a lot of things. Everybody is in their program. That’s part of

their year appraisal.

Right. So we went through everybody, see what they are. We are

questions. We asked questions about their, where do they find

themselves in the career? What do they want to do? What is the areas

that they see of growth? What does their manager see that they can

help and how we do that. We have a training program with modules. have

a mentorship program and that is starting next month where we connect

people with mentors to help them unlocking in certain parts of their

career. But that is critical to be able to do that. Wow.

Speaker 2 (48:13)

Well, fantastic. Sergio, thank you so much for giving us so much of

your time and for doing this. It’s lovely to see you. And I think, you

know, there’s been a lot of, you know, like I said, there’s been a lot

of stuff out there about what you guys are doing. think, you know,

some is quite a bit as misinformation, I think. And I think just a lot

of fear of the future. And I think it sounds to me like you’re doing

some really interesting stuff. And I think, you know, I think the, you

know, the future looks bright and interesting.

Speaker 1 (48:42)

We’ll get it wrong a lot of times, but we know that where we’re going,

we feel that just staying the same where we are and staying static is

not sustainable. So we’re just trying, we’re just figuring out what is

our path and what we clearly see. We have a point of view with the

futurists and we’re just trying to figure out how we get there

quickly.

Speaker 2 (49:00)

Well, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (49:02)

Good. I flesh Orlando. So good to see you. So good to see your.